Technology, World
Mandela dies at 95. South Africa's greatest son and a beacon freedom around the world. Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president and its "greatest son", who led his country out of apartheid and became a hero to millions around the world, died peacefully at his home in Johannesburg on Thursday at the age of 95.
Mandela passed away with family members around him at his home in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton just before 9pm, after more than a year of ill health caused by a lung infection.
The announcement of Mandela's death came in a televised address to the nation by President Jacob Zuma at 11.30pm in South Africa, or 9.30pm in Britain. It followed several hours of speculation prompted by reports that his family and his friends had been flocking to his bedside. "He is now resting", Zuma said.
"He is now at peace. Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father. Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss." Zuma announced a period of national mourning and said South African flags would fly at half mast around the world until Mandela's state funeral was held in the coming weeks. His body is expected to be taken to the capital Pretoria, where he will lie in state. "Nelson Mandela brought us together, and it is together that we will bid him farewell," Zuma added.
"Let us express, each in our own way, the deep gratitude we feel for a life spent in service of the people of this country and in the cause of humanity." It is not known which of Mandela's family members were with him when he died. He has been married three times and has three surviving children and 17 grandchildren. Mandela's death came five months before the 20th anniversary of his inauguration as South Africa's first black, democratic president, a day for which he endured 27 years' imprisonment at the hands of the apartheid government. The announcement of Mandela's death sent many South Africans on to the streets. Some made their way to his home in Houghton, where they lit candles and sang the struggle anthem Shosholoza. Broadcasters began showing the coverage that they had prepared for so long, and television screens were filled with images of Mandela's well-known salt and pepper hair, his smile-crinkled eyes and bright shirts, beaming broadly as he clutched the hands of nearly every world leader and celebrity of his generation. Tributes were made from around the world.
10 things Nelson Mandela said that you have to know
One family friend who went to the house told The Telegraph just hours before his death was confirmed: "I think it's beyond everyone now. It's what everyone knew for months but it's still hard." In recent years, Mandela had suffered from a series of respiratory illness that most recently saw him spend several months in hospital in Pretoria. His release back to his home in September was greeted with none of the jubilation of his previous rallies back to health. This time, South Africans were under no illusion that the end was near. Nelson Rolihlahla (meaning "troublemaker") Mandela began as a fiery young lawyer who battled South Africa's apartheid, first by organising mass acts of defiance and later through armed resistance. When he was jailed in 1962, following a tip-off by the US Central Intelligence Agency, he was seen as a terrorist in South Africa and abroad. By the time he was released 27 years later, his name had become synonymous around the world with the struggle for justice against tyranny and oppression.
Health, World
Delhi has 2,092 dengue cases and three confirmed deaths so far. Rajasthan has recorded 600 dengue cases and two deaths in 2013. Meanwhile, Gujarat has recorded 1471 cases and two deaths. Mumbai alone stands at 524 cases and 2 confirmed deaths whereas has 5532 confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths in 2013.
The health authorities meanwhile are playing the blame game. "Definitely, authorities have not taken work actively. If they'd taken, things would've been better," Health Minister AK Walia .
The is carrying out its fumigation activity in residential areas across the city. While most of the dengue deaths have been from north Delhi, the admin is going all out to prevent more such cases.
Down south, Karnataka has been badly hit in 2013 with over 5500 confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths so far. However, the says the cases are slowly coming down.
With dengue on the rise doctors advise people to watch out for symptoms like high , body ache, eye pain and vomiting. "Most important thing is to prevent mosquito breeding, keep yourself covered and protected during morning and evening, use mosquito repellent and net," Gangaram Hospital Dr Atul Gogia said.
Around 16,000 dengue
cases reported across the country in 2013
Shylaja Varma, CNN-IBN | Updated Oct 01, 2013 at 12:27pm IST
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New Delhi: Almost 16,000 cases of dengue have been reported across the
country so far in 2013. The maximum cases have been reported from
Karnataka, where 12 people have died so far due to fever.
Delhi has 2,092 dengue cases and three confirmed deaths so far.
Rajasthan has recorded 600 dengue cases and two deaths in 2013.
Meanwhile, Gujarat has recorded 1471 cases and two deaths. Mumbai alone
stands at 524 cases and 2 confirmed deaths whereas Karnataka has 5532
confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths in 2013.
The health authorities meanwhile are playing the blame game.
"Definitely, authorities have not taken work actively. If they'd taken,
things would've been better," Delhi Health Minister AK Walia said.
The MCD is carrying out its fumigation activity in residential areas
across the city. While most of the dengue deaths have been from north
Delhi, the admin is going all out to prevent more such cases.
Down south, Karnataka has been badly hit in 2013 with over 5500
confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths so far. However, the health
department says the cases are slowly coming down.
With dengue on the rise doctors advise people to watch out for symptoms
like high fever, body ache, eye pain and vomiting. "Most important thing
is to prevent mosquito breeding, keep yourself covered and protected
during morning and evening, use mosquito repellent and net," Gangaram
Hospital Dr Atul Gogia said.
Read more at: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/around-16000-dengue-cases-reported-across-the-country-in-2013/425647-3.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/around-16000-dengue-cases-reported-across-the-country-in-2013/425647-3.html?utm_source=ref_article
Around 16,000 dengue
cases reported across the country in 2013
Shylaja Varma, CNN-IBN | Updated Oct 01, 2013 at 12:27pm IST
Share
airtel broadband offer Get free wifi router with advance rental plan
of airtel broadband. shop.airtel.com/broadband
HTML5 Developer? Open source backend as a service REST API for mobile
applications www.dreamfactory.com
Ads by Google
New Delhi: Almost 16,000 cases of dengue have been reported across the
country so far in 2013. The maximum cases have been reported from
Karnataka, where 12 people have died so far due to fever.
Delhi has 2,092 dengue cases and three confirmed deaths so far.
Rajasthan has recorded 600 dengue cases and two deaths in 2013.
Meanwhile, Gujarat has recorded 1471 cases and two deaths. Mumbai alone
stands at 524 cases and 2 confirmed deaths whereas Karnataka has 5532
confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths in 2013.
The health authorities meanwhile are playing the blame game.
"Definitely, authorities have not taken work actively. If they'd taken,
things would've been better," Delhi Health Minister AK Walia said.
The MCD is carrying out its fumigation activity in residential areas
across the city. While most of the dengue deaths have been from north
Delhi, the admin is going all out to prevent more such cases.
Down south, Karnataka has been badly hit in 2013 with over 5500
confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths so far. However, the health
department says the cases are slowly coming down.
With dengue on the rise doctors advise people to watch out for symptoms
like high fever, body ache, eye pain and vomiting. "Most important thing
is to prevent mosquito breeding, keep yourself covered and protected
during morning and evening, use mosquito repellent and net," Gangaram
Hospital Dr Atul Gogia said.
Read more at: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/around-16000-dengue-cases-reported-across-the-country-in-2013/425647-3.html?utm_source=ref_article
Read more at: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/around-16000-dengue-cases-reported-across-the-country-in-2013/425647-3.html?utm_source=ref_article
Around 16,000 dengue
cases reported across the country in 2013
Shylaja Varma, CNN-IBN | Updated Oct 01, 2013 at 12:27pm IST
Share
airtel broadband offer Get free wifi router with advance rental plan
of airtel broadband. shop.airtel.com/broadband
HTML5 Developer? Open source backend as a service REST API for mobile
applications www.dreamfactory.com
Ads by Google
New Delhi: Almost 16,000 cases of dengue have been reported across the
country so far in 2013. The maximum cases have been reported from
Karnataka, where 12 people have died so far due to fever.
Delhi has 2,092 dengue cases and three confirmed deaths so far.
Rajasthan has recorded 600 dengue cases and two deaths in 2013.
Meanwhile, Gujarat has recorded 1471 cases and two deaths. Mumbai alone
stands at 524 cases and 2 confirmed deaths whereas Karnataka has 5532
confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths in 2013.
The health authorities meanwhile are playing the blame game.
"Definitely, authorities have not taken work actively. If they'd taken,
things would've been better," Delhi Health Minister AK Walia said.
The MCD is carrying out its fumigation activity in residential areas
across the city. While most of the dengue deaths have been from north
Delhi, the admin is going all out to prevent more such cases.
Down south, Karnataka has been badly hit in 2013 with over 5500
confirmed cases and at least 12 deaths so far. However, the health
department says the cases are slowly coming down.
With dengue on the rise doctors advise people to watch out for symptoms
like high fever, body ache, eye pain and vomiting. "Most important thing
is to prevent mosquito breeding, keep yourself covered and protected
during morning and evening, use mosquito repellent and net," Gangaram
Hospital Dr Atul Gogia said.>
US, World
AP
This combination made with file photos shows (from left) President
Barack Obama, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, Syrian President Bashar
Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hopeful yet unyielding, President Barack Obama and new
Iranian President Hasan Rouhani both spoke up fervently for improved
relations and a resumption of stalled nuclear talks on Tuesday at the
U.N. but gave no ground on the long-held positions that have scuttled
previous attempts to break the impasse.
The leaders’
separate appearances at the United Nations General Assembly came amid
heightened speculation about a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations following
the election of Mr. Rouhani, a more-moderate sounding cleric. In fact,
officials from both countries had quietly negotiated the possibility of a
brief meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani.
But
U.S. officials said the Iranians told them Tuesday that an encounter
would be “too complicated” given uncertainty about how it would be
received in Tehran. Instead, Mr. Obama and Mr. Rouhani traded their
public messages during addresses hours apart at the annual U.N.
meetings.
Mr. Obama declared that it was worth
pursuing diplomacy with Iran even though scepticism persists about
Tehran’s willingness to back up its recent overtures with concrete
actions to answer strong concerns at the U.N. and in many nations that
the Iranians are working to develop a nuclear bomb.
“The
roadblocks may prove to be too great, but I firmly believe the
diplomatic path must be tested,” Mr. Obama said. He added that he while
he was “encouraged” by Mr. Rouhani’s election, the new president’s
“conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are
transparent and verifiable.”
Mr. Rouhani, making his
international debut, said Iran was ready to enter talks “without delay”
and insisted his country was not interested in escalating tensions with
the U.S. He said Iran must retain the right to enrich uranium, but he
vigorously denied that his country was seeking to build a nuclear
weapon.
“Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction have no place in Iran’s security and defence doctrine, and
contradict our fundamental religious and ethnical convictions,” Mr.
Rouhani declared. “Our national interests make it imperative that we
remove any and all reasonable concerns about Iran’s peaceful nuclear
programme.”
U.S. officials said they were not
surprised to see Mr. Rouhani publicly stake out those positions on the
international stage. Still, they say they see him as a more moderate
leader elected by an Iranian public frustrated by international
isolation and the crippling sanctions.
In another sign Mr. Rouhani was seeking a more conciliatory tone, he switched briefly from Farsi to English in a CNN interview
aired on Tuesday night a gesture that would have been difficult to
imagine under Mr. Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“I would like to say to American people- I bring peace and friendship from Iranians to Americans,” Mr. Rouhani said.
Still,
the Obama administration is unclear whether Mr. Rouhani is willing to
take the steps the U.S. is seeking in order to ease the sanctions,
including curbing uranium enrichment and closing the underground Fordo
nuclear facility.
The U.S. and its allies have long
suspected that Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon, though Tehran
insists its nuclear activities are only for producing energy and for
medical research.
Even without a meeting between Mr.
Obama and Mr. Rouhani, it was clear that the U.S. and Iran were edging
close to direct talks. Mr. Obama said he was tasking Secretary of State
John Kerry with pursuing the prospect of a nuclear agreement with Iran.
Kerry, along with representatives from five other world powers, is to
meet Thursday with Iran’s new foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
If
Mr. Kerry and Mr. Zarif hold one-on-one talks on the sidelines of that
meeting, it would mark the first direct engagement in six years between a
U.S. secretary of state and an Iranian foreign minister. A spokeswoman
for Mr. Zarif said on Thursday’s meeting indeed would mark the beginning
of a “new era” in relations with the West.
Mr.
Rouhani did hold a formal bilateral meeting on Tuesday with French
President Francois Hollande, whose country is among the Western nations
that have been seeking a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear
dispute. It was the first meeting of French and Iranian presidents since
2005, when Jacques Chirac hosted Mohammad Khatami in Paris.
The
potential for direct engagement between the U.S. and Iran was being
closely watched by Israel, which has long sought tough punishments
against Tehran in retaliation for its nuclear program. Following Mr.
Rouhani’s speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused him
of “hypocrisy” and said the new Iranian leader showed no sign of halting
his nuclear program.
“This is precisely the Iranian
intention, to talk and buy time in order to advance its ability to
achieve nuclear weapons,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Mr.
Obama will seek to allay Mr. Netanyahu’s concerns next week, when the
Israeli leader visits the White House. Ahead of that visit, Mr. Obama
signalled that any transformation in the American relationship with Iran
would take time.
“The suspicion runs too deep,” he
said. “But I do believe that if we can resolve the issue of Iran’s
nuclear program, that can serve as a major step down a long road toward a
different relationship, one based on mutual interests and mutual
respect.”
Mr. Obama first reached out to Mr. Rouhani
this summer, with a letter congratulating him on his election and
expressing urgency in resolving their nuclear disagreement before a
diplomatic window closes. Mr. Rouhani responded with a letter of his
own, thanking Mr. Obama for his outreach. In subsequent interviews,
Rouhani also has suggested an interest in a new start between the U.S.
and Iran.
In the days leading up to Mr. Obama’s and
Mr. Rouhani’s appearances at the U.N., American and Iranian officials
were negotiating the possibility of a brief encounter between the
leaders, Obama administration officials said. The last time an American
and Iranian leader met was in 1977, before the U.S. cut off diplomatic
ties with Tehran following the Islamic revolution and the siege of the
American Embassy.
The officials said the White House
was open to the exchange, but the Iranians told them Tuesday that they
couldn’t have a leadership-level meeting at this point.
“The
Iranians have an internal dynamic that they have to manage and the
relationship with the United States is clearly quite different than the
relationship that Iran has with other Western nations,” one senior
administration official said. That official spoke only on condition of
anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the U.S.
view by nameWorld
Rouhani's U.N. Speech in 3 Minutes:
Addressing the General Assembly, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran
explained his positions on Syria, sanctions and his country’s nuclear
program.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed the General Assembly on Tuesday.
Mr. Rouhani, whose speech followed President Obama’s by more than six
hours, also acknowledged Mr. Obama’s outreach to Iran aimed at resolving
more than three decades of estrangement and recrimination, and
expressed hope that “we can arrive at a framework to manage our
differences.”
But the Iranian leader also asserted that the “shortsighted interests of
warmongering pressure groups” in the United States had resulted in an
inconsistent American message on the nuclear dispute and other issues.
Mr. Rouhani restated Iran’s insistence that it would never pursue
nuclear weapons in its uranium enrichment program, saying, “this will
always be the position of Iran.”
But he offered no specific proposals to reach a compromise on the
nuclear dispute, which has led to Iran’s severe economic isolation
because of Western sanctions that have impaired its oil, banking and
manufacturing base.
The sanctions, he said, are “violent, pure and simple.”
The speech by Mr. Rouhani, a moderate cleric who is close to Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared partly aimed at his own
domestic audience and was his most prominent opportunity to explain his
views, following his election in June. His ascent came after eight
years of pugnacious saber-rattling by his hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who regularly railed against the United States and Israel,
questioned the Holocaust and provoked annual walkouts by diplomats at
his General Assembly speeches.
There was no such mass walkout this time.
“We believe there are no violent solutions to world crises,” Mr. Rouhani said.
Mr. Rouhani’s visit to the United Nations has been widely anticipated
for any signs of the moderation and pragmatism that he said his
administration was bringing to Iran. But his speech still provoked
skepticism and criticism.
Thousands of anti-Rouhani demonstrators rallied outside the United
Nations headquarters, including members and sympathizers of the
Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian dissident group that is banned in Iran and
was removed from a State Department terrorist group list last year after
an aggressive lobbying effort in Washington.
Pro-Israel lawmakers and interest groups criticized Mr. Rouhani’s speech
as lacking specifics and echoing the themes Mr. Ahmadinejad had
espoused. “Those who expected a dramatic departure are disappointed,”
said Gary Samore, the president of United Against Nuclear Iran, a New
York-based group that has advocated for strong sanctions against the
country. “This address was surprisingly similar to what we are used to
hearing from Iran, both in tone and substance.”
Mr. Rouhani never once mentioned Israel by name in his speech, although
he did speak to what he called the violence perpetrated on the
Palestinians. “Palestine is under occupation,” he said. “The basic
rights of Palestinians are tragically violated.”
Israeli leaders, who have called Iran an existential threat to Israel,
have publicly criticized Mr. Rouhani as no different from others in the
Iranian government.
In a generic reference to Iran’s critics, Mr. Rouhani said they had
established what he called “propagandistic and unfounded faith-phobic,
Islamo-phobic, Shia-phobic and Iran-phobic discourses,” which he said
posed “serious threats against world peace and human security.”
Those who malign Iran, Mr. Rouhani said, “are either a threat against
international peace and security themselves or promote such a threat.”
“Iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region,” he said.
He concluded his speech with a reference to both the diversity and unity
of religions in their affirmation of peace and tolerance.
“My hope, aside from personal and national experience, emanates from the
belief shared by all divine religions that a good and bright future
awaits the world,” he said. “As stated in the Holy Koran: ‘And We
proclaimed in the Psalms, after We had proclaimed in the Torah, that My
virtuous servants will inherit the earth.'”
Obama, World
President Obama says he quit smoking for one major reason: First lady Michelle Obama.
"I haven't had a cigarette in 6 years ... that's because I'm scared of my wife," Obama was overheard telling a United Nations official on Monday.
We're not positive about that six-year time frame, but it has been a while; Obama said four years ago that he still struggled with the habit.
At a 2009 news conference, Obama said: "I've said before that as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No."
From NBC News:
"In an 2012 interview with iVillage, First Lady Michelle Obama said her husband had been motivated by their daughters to successfully quit for good.
"'I know that his ability to ultimately kick the habit was because of the girls, because they're at the age now where you can't hide,' Michelle Obama said. 'I think that he didn't want to look his girls in the eye and tell them that they shouldn't do something that he was still doing.'"
